t                   oPastor John and wife Kathy  
 

 
 

Preaching God's Sovereign, Electing Grace   

RESCUE BAPTIST CHURCH


        WELCOME TO RESCUE BAPTIST CHURCH 

Sunday Morning, April 29, 2018

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SCHEDULED MEETINGS

     Sunday Morning Bible Study      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   10:00 AM

     Sunday Morning Worship           . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   11:00 AM

     Sunday Evening Worship            . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     6:30 PM

     Friday Night Bible  Study           . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  .    7:30 PM

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OPENING HYMN

  “I Am Thine, O Lord”                                                      Page 358 

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SCRIPTURE READING

    Psalm 81

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OFFERTORY

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WORSHIP HYMN

  “I Am His, and He Is Mine”                                             Page 490

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SPECIAL MUSIC

  “His Eye Is On The Sparrow”

    Solo by Cheryl Hafdell                               Judy Harmon, Pianist

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Message Title

   “If Ye Be Christ‘s

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CLOSING HYMN

  “Now I Belong To Jesus”                                                 Page 511

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“Christ hath redeemed us”

--Galatians 3:13--

  “With those four words Paul states the whole doctrine of redemption as it is revealed in the New Testament.  Christ alone is our Redeemer.  Christ bore our sins.  Christ endured the wrath of God, Christ satisfied the claims of justice against us, as our Substitute.  The work of redemption was fully accomplished. ‘Christ hath redeemed us.’  Nothing is left to be done by us. Christ has done all.  The blood of Christ poured out in death for the atonement of sin accomplished an effectual redemption. ‘Christ hath redeemed us.’ Our Lord did not provide for redemption or make redemption a possibility for all men, leaving it into the hands of man’s free will to comply with his work and make it effectual.  Redemption was performed by Christ alone.  Redemption was accomplished at Calvary.  And that redemption accomplished at Calvary was an effectual atonement for sin.

    The apostle Paul also makes it plain that the benefits of Christ’s atonement are designed for and limited to God’s elect. ‘Christ hath redeemed us.’  God plainly says, regarding the death of his Son, ‘For the transgression of my people was he stricken’ (Isa. 53:8). The Bible nowhere states, nor does it anywhere imply, that the Lord, Jesus Christ shed his blood and died to redeem all men from the curse of the law.  I do not believe that doctrine which says that Judas was redeemed by Christ.  It is not possible that our Lord died as a Substitute in Judas’ place, bearing the curse of the law for him.  Any who embrace such a doctrine must also embrace one of three absurd and blasphemous conclusions: (1) Either Judas is in heaven, which is to deny the Word of God; or (2) Christ failed to redeem the ones for whom he died and failed in his work of redemption as the sinner’s Substitute; or (3) the justice of God his fallen to the ground, for if God punishes both the sinner and the sinner’s Substitute for the same offense he would mock his own justice. This is the doctrine of Scripture: ‘Christ hath redeemed us!’ All God’s elect, all who believe.”

Pastor Don Fortner

Are You A Christian?

    “The majority of people, when first seeing this question immediately answer yes.  Here is another question; ‘What does a Christian believe’?  They all believe the same fundamental truths don't they?  ‘They shall all be taught of God’ (John 6:44-45)?  There is one book (the Bible), One God, One Savior, One Way, One Faith, so Christians agree on ALL these blessed truths.

    The Scriptures are the inerrant, infallible, verbally inspired word of God. Not only are they words about God, they are the very words of God.  They are His means of revealing Himself and His will to mankind (II Tim. 3:16).

    God is absolutely Sovereign!  He works all things after the counsel of His own will.  He actually rules over this world and the affairs of those in it.  He does exactly as He pleases and when He pleases  (Eph. 1:11, Dan. 4:35).

    Man is dead in trespasses and sins.  He is spiritually dead towards God and his carnal mind is enmity against God.  Man, in his dead state, has neither the power nor the will to come to God.  He loves darkness rather than light.  He must be born again and that by a sovereign, supernatural work of God (Eph. 2:11, Rom. 8:7-8).

    God the Father chose a people in Christ, before the foundation of the world.  He chose them not because of any worth or merit in them, or because of any foreseen act they would or would not commit.  He elected them to salvation by grace through faith in Christ just because it pleased Him (Eph. 1:4-5, Rom. 8:29-30).

    Jesus Christ, who was God manifested in the flesh, came into this world to save His people from their sin.  Our Lord's life and death was for a particular people.  All for whom He died shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of His hands (Matt. 1:21, John 10:15-29).

    The Holy Spirit will effectually call to repentance and faith all for whom Christ died.  In the day of His power His people shall be made willing.  The Holy Spirit will reveal Christ to all of God's elect, by the gospel, and they will all in time believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (John 16:13-15, Ps. 110:3, I Thess. 1:5).  Christians Do Not Believe they are saved because of any act of their freewill or decision they made but rather an act Of God's Freewill!  The first principles taught us when God begins with us, that we have neither will nor power, but that he gives both; that he is ‘Alpha and Omega’ in the salvation of men.

    All who are God's elect, all for whom Christ died, all whom the Holy Spirit brings to repentance and faith, shall persevere in that faith unto death and will inherit an eternal enjoyment of the blessed Godhead (Heb. 10:39, I Pet. 1:5).

    This is what Christians believe. This is what distinguishes us from all false gods and false hopes.                  

Pastor Donnie Bell

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • Our monthly Fellowship Dinner is scheduled for next Sunday following our morning worship service.
  • An afternoon worship service is scheduled next Sunday following the fellowship dinner. We will come to The Lord’s Table during that service, Lord willing.

******* Cleaning duty this week: Gene and Judy Harmon *******

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SUGGESTED BIBLE READINGS FOR THIS WEEK

Monday                          Wednesday                     Friday

Psalm 42                         Luke 7                             Revelation 20

Psalm 43                         Luke 8                             Revelation 21

Psalm 44                         Luke 9                             Revelation 22

Psalm 45                         Luke 10                           Matthew 1

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God our Father has provided a perfect robe of righteousness for every believer.  Jesus Christ put every stitch in that beautiful robe by His perfect obedience to God’s will while He was here on this sin-cursed earth.  Sinners who sinfully attempts to add one stitch of their own doings to Christ‘s righteousness God dresses His enlightened children with, including their so-called free will, is an abomination to our Sovereign Lord.  Those self-righteous rebels do not know Jesus Christ and His glorious gospel.  They are still dead in trespasses and sins.  They’re on their way to eternal torment, and will wind up there, unless God graciously intervenes, and delivers them from their love of the spiritual darkness they’re in (John 3:19; Col. 1:12 - 13).  

           Pastor

                                                                                                                                             

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

 

  “The gospel, rightly understood and cordially embraced, will inspire the slothful with energy and the fearful with courage.  It will make the miser generous, melt the grouch into kindness, tame the raging tiger in the breast, and in a word, expand the narrow, selfish heart and fill it with a spirit of love to God, cheerful unreserved obedience to His will, and benevolence to mankind.”

John Newton (1725-1807)

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THE SALVATION OF THE TRIUNE GOD

  “Each glorious person in the Godhead has a glorious part in our salvation.  God the Father chose, sanctified, and set us apart in Christ before the world was; God the Son took our humanity into union to His personal Godhead, was made flesh, lived a perfect life, suffered and died a solemn death, rose again from the dead, and is now exalted at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us; God the Spirit awakened the dead and ‘called us with an holy calling.’  This call is the solemn, soul-quickening, heart-rending call of the Holy God from death to life, from darkness to light, from the power of sin and Satan to the kingdom of the Son of His love.  So that, before the world was, the church was saved purposely by God the Father; in time meritoriously by the God-man, Christ Jesus, who now lives above, as their mediator, High Priest, and advocate; and in the day of God’s power they are saved manifestly and vitally by the ‘washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit’ (Titus 3:4-7).

– William Gadsby (1773-1844)

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Itching Ears

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables (2 Tim 4:3-4).

  “I don’t think that there is any doubt that this time has come.  I am amazed at the things that naturally bright and intelligent men and women will sit and listen to today.  People will flock to hear a man who claims to have gone to heaven and returned with stories to tell after being revived on the operating table.  Men and women are simply fascinated by such sensationalism but are not interested in the plain and simple teaching of redemption in and by the perfect righteousness of Christ.  They will not endure sound doctrine.  Men and women will fill auditoriums to heap to themselves teachers who tell them how God desires for all to be healthy and wealthy but they have turned away their ears from the truth to hear these fables.  Paul tells us this is caused by their own lusts.  Men want God to be who and what they desire but they do not desire God to be who and what He is.  I speak of those who have nothing but itching ears.”

Pastor David Eddmonson

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    “Our enemy is crafty, and he uses the natural stresses of this life to drain our strength, then he hits us with the one-two punch of our guilt. I have known for many years that I am an unworthy sinner – unworthy of God’s grace and unworthy to be among those who preach it.  But brother, I feel it so strongly now!  There is a strong temptation to quit (the ministry) and a great fear that I shall be found out for the wretch I am and be humiliated out of the ministry of the gospel.  These things feel so much like weights thrown on me as I try to run the race.

    I say that our enemy drains our strength.  The truth is, he can drain only our fleshly strength. He has no access to that spiritual strength which is ours by grace.  But, it is fleshly strength we FEEL, and when it is gone, we FEEL weak.  Spiritual strength is known and experienced only by faith.  I think this is part of what Paul meant when he said, ‘When I am weak, then am I strong.’  Each of us is two men, in some respects.  And God allows our enemy to so weaken us in our flesh that we have nothing but that which is ours through God’s grace given to the spirit.  Of course, the devil does this because he hates us, but God lets him do it because He loves us.  However, as we experience it, all we feel is the diabolical hatred, not the Divine love.  In fact, the devil sometimes is able to convince us that his hatred that we feel is actually a Divine hatred, and our thinking is all confused with guilt and a sense of condemnation.  But even as Satan works to remove our hope from Christ, God, who began His work of grace in us, keeps at it, and we continue to believe even as we cry out, ‘Help my unbelief.’   How right William Cowper was when he wrote, ‘God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform!’

    But it will not be long before God removes us from here and takes us where none of this happens anymore. Until then, we live in the encouragement of that hope.”

--Copied

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  “A. W. Pink said, ‘When the sovereignty of God is denied, there will be no awe of Him.’  How true, for it is only before an Almighty, and Sovereign God that men will bow down and WORSHIP.  It is only in the purpose and will of our sovereign, all-wise Father that we can find PEACE. It is only through the blood and righteousness of a Redeemer WHO CANNOT FAIL, that we have a GOOD HOPE of eternal life!”

Pastor Henry Mahan